Skip Beat! (anime+manga)

Skip-Beat! is about Kyoko Mogami, a wistful yet cheery sixteen year-old girl who loves her childhood friend, Shotaro, but is cruelly betrayed and thus seeks revenge against him. She used to spend a lot of time at Shotaro’s parents’ inn and learned a lot about housekeeping, hostelry, and other feminine jobs (sewing, cooking, serving tea traditionally, etc.). Shotaro, not wishing to take over his parents’ inn, becomes bored of living in Kyoto and decides to move to Tokyo to pursue a career in music. Sho, as he is called by his fans, asks Kyoko to leave high school in Kyoto Prefecture and her life behind to help him.

Upon arrival in Tokyo, Kyoko lives an unreasonably frugal life, spending nothing on herself and doing whatever she can for the freeloading Sho, who eventually becomes ranked seventh in the top twenty most popular entertainers of Japan. One day, however, as Kyoko brings Sho his lunch at a company building, she overhears Shotaro complaining about her to his manager, saying that she is a boring and plain girl with no sex appeal that he’d like to cast away. He then proceeds to sweet-talk and flirt with his manager, in stark contrast to the cold and demanding attitude he usually exhibits towards Kyoko. Unlike other heroines in the same situation, Kyoko doesn’t shed many tears when she learns that Sho thinks she’s only good for housekeeping. Instead, her “Pandora’s box” opens and she vows vengeance on Sho. Enraged, Kyoko attempts to attack Sho, but is instantly carried off by security. Sho mockingly tells her that if she wants revenge, she had better become a bigger star than him. And so, Kyoko, vowing revenge, changes her appearance and enters the entertainment business, facing many challenges along the way. Skip Beat! follows Kyoko’s journey to climb the showbiz ladder as she meets interesting people, in the hopes of getting revenge on Shotaro, but also in order to get back her sense of compassion that she had lost when her heart was broken by Sho. (source: wikipedia)

T H O U G H T S

Again, it is one of my roommate’s influence why I watch Skip Beat (SB).

Before watching SB my roommate told me about its summary and somehow, I was attracted to the story, and so I tried the anime. I may say that the story is quite good plus after finishing the whole anime, I found myself desperately reading the continuation of it in the manga (which means that it is indeed interesting).

SB mostly deals about acting. At first I was expecting that it will revolve more on the story of Kyoko having her revenge on Sho (or to put it simply, there should be ‘romantic scenes’) but I was wrong, since in most of the episodes it deals with Kyoko’s struggle to become a known artist. In the anime, it took about 3-4 episodes for an acting concept (or would you call it an arc?) to finish. However, there were times that some of the scenes bore me because honestly I was in for the ‘romance’, and there were a few hints of it (leading me to disappointment).

As for Ren and Sho, argggggghhhhhhhhhh, I can’t honestly choose who Kyoko should end up with, as of now I’m all for Ren, and I think it will be Ren in the end (though there’s a part of me wishing it’ll be Sho, ‘coz it’ll be cuter ^^).

About the manga, it is still ongoing, and there have been a lot of development. And I heard there will be a Taiwanese adaptation (& some say japanese too) of Skip Beat, with Ariel Lin & Jerry Yan as the main casts, I still have my doubts on whether it will be good, but let’s just wait and see🙂

Overall, for me, Skip Beat’s okay, a little bit over the average anime/manga for me (see I have my own taste of an anime).

———-

June 2011.

About the last sentence above, I would like to change that. SKIP BEAT is one of my favorite anime/mangas (the other one would be Gakuen Alice).

I realized belatedly that Skip Beat is the type of anime that gets better when you re-watched it. To date, I have watched it four times, and I’m in my second re-reading of the manga. If before I was complaining about the lack of romance in the anime, now I don’t even care. I’m more interested in Kyoko’s quest to become a star. Though I still crave for Ren x Kyoko moments.

Another thing, Kyoko became my favorite female anime character. I like her so much🙂 I wish they would already make the second season, if they are waiting for the manga to finish then what would that leave us (the fans)? I personally think that if they are worrying whether the manga’s chapters (after the anime) are enough to fill a 26-episode anime, then they can forget about it. With all the story arcs presented, the can even make a third season already. And given Skip Beat’s popularity among the manga readers, season 2 should be well on its way.

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2 thoughts on “Skip Beat! (anime+manga)”

yes, the romance in skip beat is really subtle, but it’s definitely there! even in the manga, the romance hasn’t quite developed yet, but the cute moments between ren and kyoko are more intense…haha…DYING FOR SEASON 2 THOUGH! i can’t get enough of this series!